If asked, people will tell you punk first emerged with the Ramones in 1974. Although it might be older it didn’t catch the attention of the public until 1974, 1975 with the Sex Pistols or 1976 with the Clash invading the airwaves. Ever since then many other punk rockers followed in the footsteps of these bands. A band that has thrived since 1988 is Green Day. The band consists of Billy Joe Armstrong (vocals/guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass), and Tré Cool (drums). The trio was originally signed to Lookout! Records, and produced two albums, Kerplunk, and 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours, before signing to a major label in 1994. Shortly after, Green Day released one of their most successful albums: Dookie. Following this, the band went on to produce many albums that still have a punk rock style, including the Grammy award winning album American Idiot.
Another successful band that formed in 1987 is The Offspring. This band started when a bunch of high school cross country teammates decided to form a band after a Social Distortion concert. After, the band reformed to include Bryan “Dexter” Holland as the vocalist, Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman on guitar (he was actually the high school’s custodian), Greg “K” Kriesel on bass, and Pete Parada on drums. At the beginning The Offspring self-released a single and in 1989 put out their self-titled debut album with the label Nemesis. Later the band signed to Epitaph. Following the signing, the band has risen in popularity, selling about 11 million copies of their album Smash.
During the years when the Clash thrived, they favored dub. Dub was a less commercial and spacier version of reggae in which the instruments would drop in and out, and echo and reverb are used extensively. This was favored by the British punk bands more so than the American bands. The one genre of punk rock music that was favored by popular bands, like the Ramones and Green Day, was pop-punk. This sub-genre of melodic punk with multiple meanings was used to...